Since debuting their hot-selling Netbook PCs, respectively Aspire One and Eee PC, Acer and Asus have effectively boosted their global market shares in the past one year, and advanced to No. 2 and No. 5 presently by sales volume. This drives quite a few Chinese copycats to launch Netbook PC clones in the domestic market to seek profits.

Especially, as the global economic recession has heavily undermined the market for IT-based products and consumer electronics worldwide recently, the consumer demand in Chinese domestic market has comparatively stayed solid. According to industry insiders, there are an estimated 2 million Netbook PC clones in demand in the market this year. To cash in on the huge business potential, Hon Hai Group hence has moved to cooperate with Foxsky, with its first Netbook PC clone already surfacing in the market.

The Netbook PC clone, labeled by Foxsky and manufactured by Hon Hai's affiliate Foxconn International Holdings (FIH), features Intel' Atom series processor, the mainstream widely used in Netbook PCs, and a competitive unit price of RMB2,499 (about US$345 at US$1: RMB6.84). Noteworthy is that the Chinese generic brand contracts FIH to take charge of related consumer services, in hopes of taking advantage of latter's fame as a globally leading OEM (original equipment manufacturer) to punctuate the product's quality.

Institutional investors indicated that Hon Hai Group, since officially venturing into production of notebook PCs last year, has added only a few contract orders from HP and Dell for low-end models this year, besides those from existing clients Apple and Sony. However, the decision to join the Netbook clone market in China is expected to improve the firm's production capability of such products in the future.

Worth mentioning is that Intel, the world's largest developer of processors, has also shown intense interest in the Netbook clone market, while Taiwanese motherboard makers, including Micro-Star International Co. and Gigabyte Technology Corp., have also decided to supply the key component for Chinese generic brands of this kind. This indicates that the trend of "keeping it real fake" in China has spread worldwide and been accepted by some globally leading brands.